Apple Acquires Startup DarwinAI As AI Efforts Ramp Up 16
According to Bloomberg, Apple has acquired Canada-based AI startup DarwinAI for an undisclosed sum. Macworld reports: Apple has reportedly folded the DarwinAI staff into its own AI team, including DarwinAI co-founder Alexander Wong, an AI researcher at the University of Waterloo who "has published over 600 refereed journal and conference papers, as well as patents, in various fields such as computational imaging, artificial intelligence, computer vision, and multimedia systems."
According to its LinkedIn profile, DarwinAI is "a rapidly growing visual quality inspection company providing manufacturers an end-to-end solution to improve product quality and increase production efficiency." In layman's terms, that means Apple is likely interested in DarwinAI to streamline its manufacturing to be more efficient. That's something that could save Apple a ton of money in annual costs.
Far more interesting to our consumer devices, however, is Bloomberg's report that DarwinAI's tech can be used to make AI models more efficient in general. Apple has been said to want any generative AI features to run on the device rather than the cloud, so models will need to be as small as possible and DarwinAI could definitely help there. Last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the iPhone maker sees "incredible breakthrough potential for generative AI, which is why we're currently investing significantly in this area. We believe that will unlock transformative opportunities for users when it comes to productivity, problem solving and more."
According to its LinkedIn profile, DarwinAI is "a rapidly growing visual quality inspection company providing manufacturers an end-to-end solution to improve product quality and increase production efficiency." In layman's terms, that means Apple is likely interested in DarwinAI to streamline its manufacturing to be more efficient. That's something that could save Apple a ton of money in annual costs.
Far more interesting to our consumer devices, however, is Bloomberg's report that DarwinAI's tech can be used to make AI models more efficient in general. Apple has been said to want any generative AI features to run on the device rather than the cloud, so models will need to be as small as possible and DarwinAI could definitely help there. Last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the iPhone maker sees "incredible breakthrough potential for generative AI, which is why we're currently investing significantly in this area. We believe that will unlock transformative opportunities for users when it comes to productivity, problem solving and more."
A bit surprised (Score:3)
I didn't think a whole company could win one of these but it sure looks like they'll get it.
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Help (Score:2)
DarwinAI is "a rapidly growing visual quality inspection company providing manufacturers an end-to-end solution to improve product quality and increase production efficiency."
My bullshit buzzword detector has gone off and I'm having hard time resetting it. Can anyone offer some advice?
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Translator from nerd-speak: "Darwin AI builds software that uses cameras to watch for damaged or defective goods on the production line so that companies don't have to pay people to do it."
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"incredible breakthrough potential for generative AI, which is why we're currently investing significantly in this area. We believe that will unlock transformative opportunities for users when it comes to productivity, problem solving and more."
I think it says, "at apple we cant write code for shit but we can buy a company that can; we will let them stagnate like siri but at least no one else will get their work"
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For a nominal monthly fee (Score:2)
How much you want to bet that the end result will be a subscription-fee product?
That said, the visual inspection thing might dovetail with the Vision Pro and allow for some sort of Vision Pro based inspection tool.
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How much you want to bet that the end result will be a subscription-fee product?
That said, the visual inspection thing might dovetail with the Vision Pro and allow for some sort of Vision Pro based inspection tool.
Interesting thought!
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Archive URL (Score:2)
Here's a link to the web archive copy of their website: https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
Darwin/Darwin (Score:2)
What's in a name...